Grilled ahi tuna with roasted shiitake frisée salad, topped with wasabi vinaigrette, is typical of the fine fare you'll find at Carpe Diem.

CARPE DIEM Location: 1535 Elizabeth Ave. at Travis Avenue, near Presbyterian Hospital. Phone: 704-377-7976 Details: Separate bar area, $15 corkage fee, reservations strongly suggested, private dining areas, off-premise catering for 100 or less; private on-site luncheons and receptions. Prices: $12.50-$28. Hours: Open Monday-Saturday at 5 p.m. for dinner.

They say location is everything. For Charlotte sisters and business partners Bonnie Warford and Tricia Maddrey, the third location of their popular restaurant, Carpe Diem, may prove to be the best.

Open for dinner only, Carpe Diem is in the Elizabeth neighborhood, just a block from the front entrance of Presbyterian Hospital at Elizabeth and Travis avenues. "We're really Downtown now," Maddrey said. "And, we really like being in a neighborhood."

The menu is brought to life by chef John Blumreich and offers some tried-and-true Carpe Diem standards with seasonal favorites and nightly specials. It's hard to go wrong with anything on the list. The fried buttermilk chicken is a classic, as is the pistachio-crusted trout. It's been my experience that all of the seafood specials are winners, as are the crab cakes, the beef carpaccio, the goat cheese salad, the chicken satay, and the roasted duck breast. Bread comes to the table in a white napkin-lined tin, and a host of wines are available by the bottle and by the glass.

Desserts are to die for, with an offering of a half dozen or so, including a mouthwatering cobbler, a chocolate ganache and some sort of crème brulee on the menu each night.

Thanks to "Dead Poets Society"
The year was 1989, the cuisine was "new American" and the attitude and atmosphere at Carpe Diem was anything but "old Charlotte." It was a cool location, Uptown and upbeat, unlike anything else Charlotte had to offer. Warford and Maddrey chose the name because they liked it and "because we liked what it meant," Warford explained. "Friends said we would have trouble with name recognition." But then Robin Williams' movie "Dead Poets Society" came out and the signature line was "Carpe Diem," which means "Seize the Day."

"Our name recognition soared," Warford said.

After some 10 years on Tryon Street, the face of Uptown began to change and the restaurant moved out from under the old Radcliff Florist neon sign to make way for growth and construction. The original Carpe Diem location is now home to a new Uptown restaurant, Irish Blessings.

As fate would have it, Carpe Diem's second incarnation, located at the corner of East Trade Street and Brevard Avenue, only lasted three years. That building was demolished to make way for the new arena.

Disheartened but not discouraged, the sisters relocated this time to the remodeled Southern College of Beauty building, originally built, as best Warford and Maddrey can figure, sometime in the mid to late '50s.

Situated down the street from Anderson's Restaurant and the Visulite Theatre, Carpe Diem is in on the ground floor of the Elizabeth neighborhood's revitalization.

Inside Carpe Diem you'll feel as if you're on a movie set. The restaurant's interiors were designed by Billy Patete, set designer for Boulevard Films. The feel is reminiscent of an old art nouveau train station, and the public space is divided into three main areas. First, there is a spacious semicircular bar. Large woodframed windows line the street side of the restaurant, and small tables for two to four dot the space between the windows and the bar. To the left of the bar is more comfortable lounge-type seating with neatly upholstered chairs and settees.

RATING SCALE Excellent, a must try. Above average, worth consideration. Average, but nothing spectacular. Just okay. Poor, not recommended.

Beyond the bar is the main dining area and just beyond that is a private room large enough to hold a crowd of 36 or so for a seated dinner. It's a white tablecloth setting that's casual and comfortable with dark marble floors and soft lighting. Black and white photos on the back wall of the private dining room mark the several manifestations of the restaurant's history. Too bad they couldn't have gotten the old neon Radcliff's sign to take to this new spot.

We found the service and wait staff at Carpe Diem to be top-notch. Several of the wait staff have been with Warford and Maddrey since the beginning, and their level of expertise, knowledge of the menu and comfort level with the way things work at the restaurant clearly shows. Warford runs the front of the house, while Maddrey works her magic as pastry chef. Both handle the day-to-day administrative tasks and the catering end of their business.

"We used to share a room when we were growing up in Miami," laughed Warford. "Now, we share an office."

Currently, there is on-street parking on both Travis and Elizabeth and some space in a bumpy empty lot next door. When construction for a new building begins on the lot, the house across the street will be torn down to make way for additional parking. For now, parking is also available across the street in the lot of the Eagle Building.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day and dine there tonight.

Sisters Bonnie Warford, left, and Tricia Maddrey are the driving force behind Carpe Diem.

Well-known Charlotte restaurant critic, food writer, cooking instructor and connoisseur of food and wine, Heidi Edidin writes "South Charlotte Weekly: Culinary Corner," a restaurant review or food feature that appears weekly. Contact Heidi with questions and restaurant, food or story ideas by email at heidi@southcharlotteweekly.com.

SCW photos by Sean Busher.

This article first appeared in "South Charlotte Weekly" on April 16, 2004. "South Charlotte Weekly" is a free, locally owned, independent newspaper that's "About the Community, For the Community," available every Thursday in South Charlotte and Uptown.

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